The Vault Mourns Giant Gonzalez

The colorful world of pro graps lost a legend last week in Jorge "Giant" Gonzalez, a man perhaps best known for being monstrously tall and wearing a furry full-body spandex suit airbrushed with muscles and a butt crack.

Although he left us at the all-too-young age of 44, Gonzalez is not just another tragic early wrestling death, done in as so many others have been by a steroid-enlarged heart tapping out after a (half) lifetime  of coke, booze, and freebasing enough pure dinosaur tranquilizer to kill God. Rather, he seems to have died because he was simply too big for this world. Also, diabetes. 

Countdown: The Top 10 Tunes from Mega Man 2

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The Top Five Best Things About "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, which is one of the undisputed greatest TV series of all time. If you don't agree with that statement, you don't belong in my readership (but thanks anyway for the hit!). Back when the TV biz was nowhere near as established (or corrupt) as it is now, much of the programming that found its way beamed into living rooms across America was essentially glorified filler made to take up time in between commercials (as opposed to now, when... wait). I sometimes like to tell myself that anyone with a camera, a script, a group of people to fill in as actors, and at least half a clue could have made history in the burgeoning picture business of this era. This is because I equate every writer and director of this era with Ed Wood for some reason.

Enter Rod Serling (shown here as the innovator of the old "arrow through the head" gag), who would have been better than you no matter when he was born no matter what you think. He was one of those ridiculously prolific types who can churn out works of irrefutable depth and profound social resonance at breakneck pace and on no budget (which, other than the "irrefutable depth and profound social resonance" part, actually sounds exactly like Ed Wood).

Don't get me wrong - just like any anthology series, there are more than a few Twilight Zone eps that could be generously described as clunkers (and the Serling-penned Night Gallery segment "The Nature of the Enemy" is actually one of the worst things I've ever seen). But the man wrote 148 of these episodes, among a ton of other things, many of which I love the shit out of, so I'll balk at calling him an overhyped hack and settle for "creative genius." Remember, kids, on the internet you're either one or the other.

But before I really digress and this turns into another Hood of Horror epic, let's just hurry up and get down to ranking the top five best things about "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet."

And by the way - you can fully watch this episode on YouTube.

Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror

I'm gonna start this blog off right - with this monster-sized, probably too long to read, screen-heavy (for the skimmers) writeup of Snoop Doggie Dogg's best starring vehicle since Soul Plane.

It's hard to believe an anthology horror movie heavily featuring Snoop Dogg could exceed expectations, but Hood of Horror is even more spectacular than I ever dared hope. I stumbled across this gem after catching the tail end of Tales from the Hood on BET the other night, and I don't know what inspired this unrelenting block of awesome in BET's programming, but I would have been a fool to not gorge myself on so much inner-city terror.

I'm just gonna throw this out there: urban-tinged genre movies are nothing new, but there's no genre that benefits from a hood sensibility more than horror. This probably has to do with the fact that both hip hop and horror are at their absolute best when they're at their most over the top. And Hood of Horror is so over the top it's impossible not to enjoy. This is that rare film that's at its best when it's not even bothering to make sense. And even when it's at it's worst, the movie still features Snoop Doggie By God Dogg as a soul stealing demon of the ghetto, the promise of which probably got this project the green light on its own. Hell, I know I would've signed off on that pitch.